Add to that the fact that heavy rains early in the week muddied what few clearer-water pools the contestants had found, and what was left was the proverbial merry-go-round effect where most of the field circled the same areas hoping to get bit.

These factors resulted in the lead changing hands each of the first three days of the contest. Thursday saw Randy Howell storm to the front of the pack; however, he was never able to recapture his opening-round steam ultimately falling out of the Top 12 and failing to make Sunday’s field ending the week in 15th. 

Alton Jones took the lead Friday, but surrendered it Saturday to Arkansas rookie Billy Mccaghren, who had been hanging around the top of the leader board from the start. But after a strong Day Three, wily veteran Tommy Biffle was hanging just behind Mccaghren for Sunday’s final launch seemingly poised to strike. 

The story of the week has been all about adjustments…and a little luck, and Sunday proved no different. In a tournament where one key fish can propel an angler from worst to first (or visa versa), every single bite matters. Mccaghren had made the most of a backwater area he’d found during practice, but a couple of missed opportunities left his lead in jeopardy.

Kevin Short, who started the day in sixth place and made the right moves on the day it mattered the most by bringing his heaviest limit of the week to the scales Sunday at 11-13 to push his final weight to 43-3 and claim the win – the first of his career.

Ending the week just a few ounces away from the win in second place was Kelly Jordon, with a total combined weight of 42-9, who brought the day’s heavyweight stringer to scales at 12-5. Billy Mccaghren could only manage two keeper bites on the final day, which weighed 6-3, and fell to third place overall with a final weight of 42-8.

Tommy Biffle, the man most likely to be the spoiler at the start of the day, ended the week in fourth place after weighing only three fish for 6-6 giving him 40-0 for the week. Stephen Browning brought a five-bass limit to the scales Sunday weighing 8-10, which brought his four-day total weight to 39-10.

Shaw Grigsby rounded out the Super Six with a total weight of 38-12 after managing to scrounge up only three keeper bites Sunday weighing 6-0.

1st Place: Kevin Short
Having earned his first Elite Series win, Kevin Short pointed out that it was well earned. Short came to Fort Madison last September and was able to familiarize himself with the basic layout and backwater sloughs. “Basically all I did for two days was drive up and down the river,” he said. 

“One day I didn’t even take a rod. I was just looking, and poking my nose in everything.” 

The river Kevin visited in September of ‘08, and the one he arrived to find when practice began this week were vastly different. “At the time the river was down about two feet from what it is right now, so I couldn’t even get back into some of the stuff that I fished this week,” he said. 

“I could see it, and tell that there was water back in there, but I couldn’t get back to it. It still helped dramatically just to be able to know where some of this stuff was.”

As a result of the years spent on the Arkansas River, Short pointed out that he was better able to understand how the bass would relate to the backwater areas he had found. “15 years ago when I first started fishing tournaments on the (Arkansas) River, all of them were won in the backwaters,” he said. 

“That’s where most of the fish were because that’s where they could most successfully spawn. When I came here and saw this, you didn’t have to be a rocket scientist to figure it out.”

Short pointed out that during practice, he recognized that there were still a good number of fish moving into the two sloughs he had committed to in Pool 18. “It just so happens that the area I was fishing, the fish were still spawning,” he said. “The water was fairly stable and was deep enough that they stayed in there all week.” 

The two sloughs Kevin committed to were “just around the corner” from one another. As a result, he was able to duck in and out dependent on how his day was going. “I would usually spend the majority of my day in the larger slough, and then slip over to the other one and maybe spend an hour or two to finish the day,” he said. 

“I would usually catch two fish out of the last stop, but Friday I caught four there.”

Being able to adjust to the falling water was a factor that Short cited as being crucial to his consistency during the week. “These two sloughs were just chocked full of lay downs, and as the water fell it would pull them closer to the ends where I could reach them with a bait,” he said.

“It was just typical river fishing where you have to adjust day-to-day because no two days are ever the same.”

Short conceded that on the final day with clearing water, things got hot in the nick of time in order for him to sneak away with the win. “I told my cameraman that when the sun popped out, it would happen quick,” he said. “When conditions got right between 1:00 and 2:00, it was on. I had the majority of what I weighed in about 30 minutes.”

Before 1:00, Short pointed out that he was struggling. “I think I had three fish in the boat at that point,” he said. “I was like, ‘Man, am I ever going to catch a break,’ but then they started to fire and I got healthy in a hurry.”

With the $100,000 check in hand, Kevin explained that he and wife Kerry had already made plans for at least a portion of it. “We’ve been at this so hard for the last four years that we haven’t even taken a vacation,” he said. “I can tell that we’re definitely going to go on vacation. I don’t know where or what we’re going to do just yet, but we’re definitely going!”

Key to the Win: “Mixing things up this week was definitely the key for me. When you’re fishing the same stuff over, and over, and over again you have to continually give them something different to react to.” 

2nd Place: Kelly Jordon
Starting the morning in eighth place, Kelly Jordon knew that he had a lot of distance to cover in order to make up the six-pound deficit he faced. “I had a lot of ground to make up, so I thought about swinging for the fences but I didn’t really know where to go to do that,” he said. 

“I felt like the areas that I’d already found had the potential for at least one big fish, so I elected to go back and beat on them again.”

With limited options of potential homerun waters, Jordon started where he had all week. “I started on a little main-river deal that I’ve been doing that has really worked out good for me, except for (Saturday),” he said. “I had three keepers there in probably and hour to and hour-and-a-half this morning, which wasn’t enough to keep me interested.” 

With three keepers in the boat, Jordon ran some backup spots only to return to his primary area – a small drain on the backside of a field levee – hoping for the best. “I got back there and realized that there wasn’t any current,” he explained. “They’d completely turned the pipe off.”

After realizing this, Kelly pointed out that he had a bit of a sinking feeling…until he started getting bit. “I noticed that the water had really cleared up – from an inch of visibility to probably eight inches, so I started working my craw tube a little further off the bank,” he said.

After catching 11 keepers on the crankbait, Kelly regrets not realizing sooner the possibilities his primary area offered. “I think I could’ve had a really nice limit if I would’ve realized what was going on sooner,” he said. “I know that there are some four-pounders in there, but I never caught one.”

Kelly pointed out that area he’d found was likely overlooked by the rest of the field because of water clarity. “When I first looked at it during practice, it was just mud, mud, mud,” he said. “I hit it anyway because I figured with the running water they had to be there.

“I think what happened was that I caught all the shallow fish, but with the clearing water I was able to get the deeper fish to bite, which I hadn’t touched all week.”

A Lake Fork Craw Tube in Blue Bruiser was his “go to” lure for most of the tournament. “I used a few different colors, but the Blue Bruiser seemed to get the most attention,” he said. “Today I made the adjustment to the crankbait, which really paid off.

“I just really wish that I could’ve got on that cranking deal earlier, but there just wasn’t any way to because of the water clarity.”

3rd Place: Billy Mccaghren
Billy Mccaghren has had a solid first year, and having a shot at winning $100,000 going into the final day is something that few anglers will ever experience. But his high expectations of another consistent day at launch soon gave way to the brutal reality of tournament fishing. “My day didn’t go nearly as planned,” he said. 

“I got to my primary area that I’ve been babying all week to make sure that I had enough, and spent the first four hours and caught 10 fish without a keeper in the bunch.”

Mccaghren pointed out that the water level had fallen in his area, which was the likely culprit for the absence keeper bites. “I finally moved out and started looking to find out where they’d went,” he said. “I managed to catch two keepers and then went to find something else.”

With two keepers in the boat, Mccaghren was still confident that fishing his strengths, as he’s done all week, would pay off. “The whole week for me just came down to making a thousand casts and pitches at every single piece of cover that I could see,” he said. “All week long, if you made enough casts you’d eventually hit one on the head and they’d eat it.”

Late in the afternoon, Mccaghren was finally able to connect with a solid fish – one that would have likely secured the win. “I moved around into another area later in the day and got a really good bite,” he said. “It hit my (Sweet) Beaver and ran under a log, and when I set the hook I busted my line.”

Alternating between a ½-ounce blue/chartreuse/white spinner bait and a black/red flake Sweet Beaver around “super-heavy” cover all week, Mccaghren explained that the lost fish is almost inexplicable. “I’ve pulled fish out of heavier stuff all this week,” he said. “I guess this one I just set into it too hard or something, I don’t know.”

In hindsight, Mccaghren explained that he really has no regrets over his finish. “I hate that I couldn’t finish the deal, but I really feel good about how I fished this week,” he said. “If I had it all to do over, I think I would do the same thing again.”

4th Place: Tommy Biffle 
Due to a rules infraction that occurred Saturday, Tommy Biffle was docked an hour of fishing time on the final day, which he chose to serve after passing through the lock. “I didn’t have a good day,” he said. 

“I sat up there on the other side of the lock in the ‘penalty box’ for an hour today for no good reason, and I’ve been pretty mad about it ever since.”

An obviously disgruntled Biffle was short on details, but clearly as tough as the fishing was this week it set up perfectly for him. “I caught everything I weighed on soft plastics and a crankbait,” he said. “It’s just a tough, shallow bite – which is what I really like. 

“I really feel like I had a legitimate shot at winning this deal,” he added, “but because of having the day shortened, which was completely out of my control, I lost my best opportunity.”

That opportunity has been coming in the form of an early-morning spot Tommy had been saving for the weekend – one that paid huge dividends for him Saturday. “I had a limit by 9:00 yesterday,” he said. “If I could’ve had the entire day to fish, it would’ve ended differently, I’m sure about that.”

In hindsight, Tommy has no regrets of the week – aside from the obvious. “I had a really good tournament,” he said. “Another Top 12, which is good, I just wish that I would’ve had a chance to fish the entire day.” 

5th Place: Stephen Browning 
Stephen Browning, with this tournament, secured his third final day appearance of the year. Making the weekend it what it’s all about as the 43-year-old Arkansas pro seeks to earn his sixth appearance into the coveted Bassmaster Classic. 

“The day started really well,” Browning commented. “I had a limit by about 10:00. I ran a bunch of new water today trying to make something happen.”

Browning opted to pick up a flipping stick to try and get a much-needed big bite, but the first five bites he had would be it. “I really thought that the way the morning was going I might be able to make things interesting,” he said. “After those five bites, it just shut down.”

Browning said that coming in, his outlook on the week was simple: The guy who catches five keepers a day will do well. “I had six keeper bites the first day, seven the second day, five the third day, and five today,” he said. “It was a real grind, but it was a lot of fun too.”

Fishing rocks and current breaks along the main river channel, Browning alternated between one lure the first two days for the majority of his weight - a Copper’s Live Target in Crawfish Hatch (one in shallow, and the other in sub-surface); however, once into the weekend, he mixed it up. 

“Once the water cleared up a little bit, I picked up a 5/16-ounce War Eagle Limit Getter,” he said. “I really thought that the spinner bait was going to be the deal for me today, but I came up a little short.”

On the week, Browning said that he fished “text book” and wouldn’t change a thing. “I had a few quality bites the first two days of the week that really kept me in it,” he said. “I just didn’t get those bites the last two days of the tournament, and that’s what made all the difference.

“I had a limit each day of the tournament, and in a deal like this I think that’s a heck of an accomplishment.” 

6th Place: Shaw Grigsby
Shaw Grigsby didn’t have any problems catching fish. “I’ve been catching a lot of fish all week, and I still caught a lot of fish today,” he said, and explained that he averaged one keeper bite to every seven short fish he would catch. “So, I got roughly 20 bites today, and only ended up with three keepers to weigh in.”

The high-energy Grigsby explained that all things being equal, his week wasn’t as tough as many in the field had admitted to having. “It was really a lot of fun,” he said. “I mean you’re jacking fish all day, I just didn’t get the kind of quality I needed to really be much of a threat.”

Shaw spent the week flipping a Strike King Rage Craw “around logs and stumps, or anything else that looked good,” and pointed out that his fish were all incredibly shallow. “Everything I caught was super-shallow,” he said. “They would be in six inches of water.

“I think that most of the guys that would go through there were just moving too quickly. I would come along behind them and pick it apart.”

Looking back on the week, Shaw explained that there’s very little he would do different. “I just ran out of fish,” he said. “I probably should’ve moved into some other areas, but that’s kind of hard to do when you’re catching them like I was.” 

7th Place: Steve Kennedy
Final-Day Thoughts: “I made another long run and on my first flip of the morning I caught my biggest fish of the day. It was bleeding everywhere because he just chocked on it. I ended up getting three more bites there, but nothing that would keep.”

8th Place: Takahiro Omori
Final-Day Thoughts: “My biggest fish is a 4-9, but after that I didn’t have anything to go with it. That’s how my day was.”

Bait of Choice: Lucky Craft RC 1.5; Sweet Beaver in Black Neon

9th Place: Scott Campbell
Final-Day Thoughts: “My fish were just really beat up today. I had several opportunities, but they wouldn’t commit. I just didn’t have the bites to be able to finish the tournament strong.

10th Place: Alton Jones
Final-Day Thoughts: “I didn’t really feel like I would be able to be as effective as I’d been because of the shortened final day (due to a rules infraction), so I decided to stay in Pool 19 and run new water. I only caught one fish, but I was able to gain a little ground on Kevin (VanDam) and Skeet (Reese) in the process.”

Bait of Choice: YUM Money Craw in Ozark Craw; YUM Mega Tube in Green Pumpkin

Biggest Challenge: “The fish weren’t out on the deep ends of cover where you’d expect them to be. They were back behind the root, or in the crack of a stump, or on the back edge of a root ball that had fallen into the water. It was really difficult to get to them.”

Key to the Week: “I rigged everything with a real light 3/16-ounce weight because they wanted a real slow fall. The other key for me was making presentations that were real tight to the bank.” 

Week in Review: “I should’ve made the run into Pool 18 today after looking at how things shook out. That’s about the only thing I would change.” 

11th Place: Gerald Swindle
Final-Day Thoughts: “I fished in the New Boston area all week long, and didn’t change anything on the final day.”

Bait of Choice: War Eagle Finesse spinnerbait (solid white); Zoom Magnum Finesse

Biggest Challenge: “I didn’t equate for the boat traffic to muddy up the water. I was getting a lot more bites in practice, and that’s about the only thing I can attribute it to.”

Key to the Week: “Everyone was throwing spinnerbaits, so what I would do is as soon as that bait would hit the water I would start shaking it. The bait would be fluttering around there and the fish would react.”

Week in Review: “It’s been a good two weeks for me. I haven’t finished as high as I would’ve liked, but you can’t complain anytime you make it to the final day of one of these things back-to-back. I had a solid game plan, and I think I read the water and made the best decisions I could’ve made.”

12th Place: Mike McClelland
Final-Day Thoughts: “Today was probably the toughest day that I’ve had here just trying to figure out how to get something going. I tried to cover a lot of new water today, just trying to stay out of the guys way who had a shot at winning.”

Bait of Choice: War Eagle spinnerbait; Spro Bronze-Eye frog; Zoom Super Hog; Zoom Tube

Key to the Week: “The areas I located in practice were such that if you got in there while they were active you could catch a limit pretty easy. If they weren’t active though, you’d really struggle.”

Week in Review: “The whole week was about covering as much water as you could. I don’t think I could change anything that I did – I just didn’t get the kind of bites that the guys ahead of me did.”

DAY FOUR STANDINGS